John Marsh

 

Retro Ramblings

by: Douglas Love, Grand 3^rd Vice-president 

On the southern side of Pacheco Boulevard between downtown Martinez and Pacheco sits California Registered Historic Landmark plaque #722.  Its inscription is brief and to the point.  It reads:

 Dr. John Marsh

California Pioneer

Murdered Here

September 24, 1856

….

California Registered

Historical Landmark No. 722

Plaque Placed by The California State Parks Commission

In Cooperation with the Martinez Horsemen’s Association, February 22, 1960.

That’s all.  No narrative, no context, just that Dr. John Marsh, who was a California pioneer, was murdered on this spot by the side of the road.  So, who was John Marsh?  What were the circumstances that led to his demise?  Why was his murder so important that its location is now a state historic landmark?

John Marsh was born in Danvers, Massachusetts in 1799 to John Marsh Sr. and his wife Polly.  He graduated from Phillips Academy in Andover and entered Harvard in 1819.  He was dismissed from Harvard for taking part in a student rebellion but was readmitted in 1821 and received a Bachelor’s Degree in 1823.  He studied medicine under a Boston doctor.  Like many ambitious young men of his era, Marsh went west to seek his fortune.  He first settled in the Michigan Territory at Fort St. Anthony, now Fort Snelling, where he started and taught at the first school in what is now Minnesota.  He also studied medicine under the fort’s surgeon who passed away before Marsh could complete his training.  By 1826 Marsh had fathered a son by his mistress, Marguerite Deconteaux, who was of French and Sioux descent.  It was at this time Marsh completed his Sioux vocabulary.  He was also appointed an assistant Indian Agent to the Sioux and a Justice of the Peace.

Marsh then relocated to Prairie du Chien and became entangled in the Black Hawk War.  Marsh was blamed for a Sioux massacre of the Fox and Sauk.  He then left and went to New Salem, Illinois where he allegedly became acquainted with a not yet nationally famous Abraham Lincoln. He then went back to Prairie du Chien and Marguerite, who tired to walk from New Salem to join him, died. 

With the death of Marguerite and leaving his son with friends in Illinois, in 1833 Marsh left for Independence, Missouri and became a merchant.  By 1835, his business had failed and Marsh found himself in Santa Fe in the employ of John Jacob Astor and the American Fur Company.  Soon Marsh was on the move again and in 1836 travelled via the Santa Fe Trail to the village of Los Angeles.  It was in Los Angeles that Marsh presented his Harvard Diploma as proof of his medical education to the government of Alta California and was granted permission to practice medicine.  Thus, John Marsh, teacher, Indian Agent, ethno-linguist, Justice of the Peace and failed businessman, became “Doctor” John Marsh.  With this bit of legerdemain, he became the first European to practice medicine in California.  On February 10, 1836, Marsh, using the Spanish version of his given name, petitioned the Government of Alta California for residency, which was granted on the 18^th and “Doctor” John Marsh became Doctor Juan Marsh, resident of California.

With his residency secured, Marsh began his medical practice in Los Angeles.  He was successful, being the only “trained” doctor in California.  As he was the first and only person to practice western medicine in the territory, his rates were rather high.  He was known to charge as much as one head of cattle to deliver a baby.  He wrote to his brother that he finally had travelled far enough west and intended to settle in California.  Since he wanted to purchase land, Marsh converted to Catholicism.

In 1838, he purchased Rancho Los  Meganos from Jose Noriega for $500.  The large rancho stretched from the San Joaquin River to the Old River and included the present day sites of Antioch, Brentwood, Knightsen, and Oakley.  With his purchase, Marsh became one of the largest land owners and the first non-Hispanic settler in what would become Contra Costa County.  As he settled into becoming a gentleman rancher, Marsh became one of the first people to practice “scientific” cattle breeding and one of the first to cultivate orchards in the area.  He also began to urge other Americans to come to California along with John Sutter and other early settlers.  His suggested overland route, then known as “Marsh’s Route”, later became the California Trail. 1n 1841, the Bidwell-Bartelson Party became the first group of emigrants to travel overland to California following Marsh’s Route.  The party stayed at Marsh’s ranch at his invitation but Bidwell and Marsh got into a dispute over a slaughtered ox or the cost of food and Bidwell later said that Marsh was “the meanest man he ever met”.  Marsh also tended some of the survivors of the Donner Party.  Marsh participated in the Mexican-American War and in 1851 married Abby Tuck, a teacher from New England, after a short courtship.  He and Abby had a daughter, named Alice, and Marsh began construction of a large stone house to replace the adobe in which the family lived.  Abby died in 1855 before the house was finished and John and Alice moved into the unfinished house. 

Of course, Marsh was murdered on September 24, 1856 while going to San Francisco by three of his employees, vaqueros who were angry about the low wages they were being paid.  So, why is the place where he was killed a state historic landmark?  Well, John Marsh was:

The first “doctor” in California,

The first non-Hispanic settler in Contra-Costa County,

An early promoter of the American settlement of California,

A pioneer livestock breeder, and

An early orchardist.

And none of this includes his life before coming to California.

GETTING THERE: California Historical Landmark #722 is located across the street from 4575 Pacheco Blvd in Martinez, CA.  From 414 Mason St: Get on I-80 East.  Follow I-80E to Exit 8B.  Take exit 8B onto I-580E.  From I-580E take exit 19B onto CA-24E.  Stay on CA24E until it merges with I-680N.  Stay on I-680 to Exit 54.  Follow Pacheco Boulevard to the destination.  The marker is on the right hand side of the road.

Lake Corcoran

 Somewhere between 655,000 and 758,000 years ago, California’s Central Valley was covered by a shallow body of water known as Lake Corcoran. Lake Corcoran covered the valley from what are now the Tehachapi Mountains to the Sierra Buttes and at its greatest extent was as large as Lake Michigan is today. It drained into the Pacific through what is now the Salinas River and Monterey Bay. It is hypothesized that Lake Corcoran provided much of the water for precipitation in the Sierra Nevada through evaporation and that water partially formed several pluvial lakes in Nevada. Wildlife flourished and fossil remains of the short-faced bear, mammoth, dire wolf, giant sloth, early horses, camels, and antelopes have been found in the Central Valley.

This vast freshwater inland sea was not to last. Some 650,000 years ago, the Earth began to warm and the glaciers which held the Sierra Nevada in an icy grip began to melt. The water began to rush into the lake raising the water level. At the same time, tectonic uplifting of the Coast Range near Monterey left Lake Corcoran with no outlet to the sea. Something had to give and it did. Approximately 600,000 years ago, Lake Corcran carved a new outlet to the sea through what is now Carquinez Strait. The water poured through a low spot in the Coast Range carving a channel 100 feet deep between what are now Contra Costa and Solano counties and permanently draining Lake Corcoran and changing the landscape of the San Francisco Bay Area and the Central Valley forever.

Lake Corcoran didn’t completely disappear. Kern, Buena Vista, and Tulare lakes were all remnants of the former freshwater inland sea. In fact, up until the late 19^th century, the Central Valley was prone to flooding which turned the land into a vast swamp. During the Spanish and Mexican periods, maps labelled the valley as “Cienega de Tulares” or “Marsh of the Tules”. While the Spanish and others saw the Central Valley as a marshy place with little to no value, the indigenous people who lived there thought very differently. The entire valley teemed with wildlife and the wetlands provided fish and fowl. Elk, deer, and beaver were plentiful. The plentiful tules provided the raw material for houses, baskets, clothing, and boats. The largest of the three lakes, Tulare Lake or Pa’ashi as it was known to the local Tachi people was the largest fresh water lake west of the Mississippi and the ninth largest in what would be the United States.

In the mid to late 1800’s many people drained and diverted the water from the marshy areas of the Central Valley to create farm and ranch land. By 1899 Tulare Lake went dry due to diversion of its source water for flood control and agricultural purposes. Buena Vista Lake lasted as an agricultural reservoir and recreational lake until 1953 when the Lake Isabella dam was built across the Kern River creating Lake Isabella. That isn’t to say that the former lakes remained dry. In the years in which there are large amounts of precipitation, most recently in 2022-23, the Tulare Lake basin has been partially refilled allowing the lake to be “reborn” and give today’s Californians a glimpse of what the Central Valley and the Tulare Lake Basin looked like in the past.

More Information: The prehistoric and historic past of the Central Valley is one of change and of human interaction and intervention which has had a direct and profound impact on the geography, history, and economy of California as a whole. Luckily, there are a few institutions who have attempted to preserve the unique history of the Central Valley.

Sarah A. Mooney Museum

542 W “D” Street

Lemoore, CA 93245

MooneyMuseum@gmail.com

(559) 904-9669

Hours: 12 to 3 p.m. on Sundays (closed on major holidays.)

The Sarah A. Mooney Museum is a preserved Victorian house with exhibits highlighting how a well off family lived in the area during the Victorian Era.

Buena Vista Museum of Natural History and Science

2018 Chester Avenue

Bakersfield, CA 93301

info@buenavistamuseum.org

(661) 324-6350

Hours: Thursday-Saturday: 10am-4pm, Sunday: 12p-4pm, Monday-Wednesday: Closed

Admission: Members: Free, Children 2 and under: Free, Adults: $10, Seniors (60+): $8

Students 12 years and older: $8, Children (3-11): $6. The Museum also has special admission days. Please visit its website @ https://www.buenavistamuseum.org/hours-and-admission

The Buena Vista Museum of Natural History and Science has exhibits about the Central Valley during the Miocene Epoch and Indigenous American life as well as exhibits on Paleontology and other areas of Science.

Kern County Museum

3801 Chester Ave, Bakersfield,

California 93301

bebe@kerncountymuseum.org

(661) 437-3330

Hours: Monday & Tuesday: Closed, Wednesday – Sunday 9:00 am – 4:00 pmClosed ALL Federal Holidays. 

 Admission: Adults: $10.00, Seniors/Military: $9.00 Children: – ages 3 to 12: $5.00 – ages 2 and under FREE when accompanied by an adult. Members: FREEFree admission to Active Duty Military and their immediate families from Memorial to Labor Day. Please visit the Kern County Museum’s Website @ https://kerncountymuseum.org/ for more information.

The Kern County has many exhibits covering the general history of Kern County including indigenous peoples, the ranching, farming, oil, and music industries. One of the museum’s highlights is the childhood home of Merle Haggard.

 

Haggin Museum

 

Within Victory Park in downtown Stockton stands the red brick Haggin Museum.  The museum houses an extensive collection of American and European art as well as displays covering the history of California, the growth of manufacturing and agriculture in the Central Valley and in Stockton in particular.  There are displays dedicated to Charles Weber, the founder of the City of Stockton, an entire gallery dedicated to Benjamin Holt and the development of the Caterpillar Tractor, to Tillie Lewis, who introduced tomato production and canning to San Joaquin County, to Sperry Flour Mills, one of the oldest milling companies in California.  The museum also has an exhibit dedicated to Stephens Brothers boats and houses the company’s archives.  There are is also a reconstructed 1900’s “Main Street” and various exhibits of local interest.

In 1928, the San Joaquin Pioneer and Historical Society was founded with the following objectives: “to develop educational facilities for the study of history, to collect documents and articles of historical interest, and to establish and maintain a museum where such items could be stored and displayed”.  In April 1929.  Mr. Robert T. McKee made an offer to the San Joaquin Pioneer and Historical Society on behalf of his wife, Eila: if an art wing was added to the purposed history museum and named in honor of her late father, Louis Terah Haggin, she would donate thirty thousand dollars towards construction of the building as well as an unspecified number of paintings from her father's collection.

With this gift, the museum opened on June 14, 1931.  The museum has been expanded and renovated several times since then; the latest renovation being completed in 2017.  The several galleries gold pieces from the Haggin collection of European and American art, a significant collection of the works of J.C. Leyendecker, who was, before Norman Rockwell, one of America’s best known commercial artists, and the archives, not only of the San Joaquin Pioneer and Historical Society, but of the Stephens Brothers Boat Works, material from the Holt Manufacturing Company, the Sperry Flour Company, and the Tillie Lewis Food Company.

In it’s American Gallery, the Haggin displays some of the finest works from the Hudson River School including paintings by George Inness, William Bradford, Thomas Moran and Albert Bierstadt.  In the Haggin and McKee Galleries, there are many European Realist and Impressionist works to view including works by William Merritt Chase, Rosa Bonheur, Jean Beraud, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and many others, all dating from the mid-19th to the early 20th century.  There is also some small statuary and ornamental pieces on display.  There is also the Jeanie Hunter Rooms, which give a glimpse into how a prosperous farmhouse was furnished at the turn of the 20th century.

The museum also has an extensive collection of Indigenous American artifacts, including a recreated Miwok dwelling, and various historic vehicles on display including a WWII jeep that was one of 275 funded by the donations from the students and faculty of Stockton High School. One of the oddest artifacts is the “Death Trunk” of Emma LeDoux, the first woman sentenced to death for murder in California.  Emma poisoned her third husband, stuffed him in the trunk while he was alive and had the trunk sent to the train depot in Stockton.  Her husband died in the trunk.  The murder was discovered after the baggage master noticed a foul smell emanating from the trunk and called the authorities.  Emma was sentenced to death, but upon retrial she was sentenced to life in prison.  The trunk is a grisly artifact of an at the time scandalous crime.

For me, the jewel of the Haggin Museum, besides the collection of Bierstadt paintings is the collection of illustrations by J.C. Leyendecker.  From the early 1900’s though the 1930’s Leyendecker was one of the best known commercial illustrators in the country.  His clients included Arrow shirts, Hart-Shaffner & Marx, Amoco, the Boy Scouts of America, Ivory Soap, Karo Syrup, Palmolive, Cream of Wheat, Kellog’s, the Saturday Evening Post, the Timken Company, Willys-Overland, Collier’s Weekly, the US Army, Navy, and Marine Corps.  His illustrations helped define the style and look of the 1910’s-1930’s.  Some of his illustrations remain recognizable today.  He was Norman Rockwell before Norman Rockwell became famous.  His sister donated many of his works to the Haggin Museum upon her death.  The Haggin  museum now holds the largest museum collection of his works.  

GETTING THERE: The Haggin Museum is located at 1201 N. Pershing Avenue, Stockton, CA 95203.  From 414 Mason Street take I-80 East across the Bay Bridge to I-580 East.  From I-580 East, take I-205 East towards Tracy/Stockton.  Merge onto I-5 North.  Take Exit 473 for the University of the Pacific/North Pershing Ave.  Turn Left on to Picardy Drive and then right into Victory Park.  The museum will be on the right.  

French Camp

 

        In front of an elementary school in an unincorporated community near Stockton; there is a California State Historic Marker, placed by the California State Parks Commission, partially in cooperation with the Native Daughters of the Golden West.  It recognizes the community of French Camp as a historic place as the terminus of the Oregon-California Trail and as a camp used by traders and trappers of the Hudson’s Bay Company, at one time one of, if not the largest fur trading corporation in the world. 

The text of the plaque reads: 

“Here was the terminus of the Oregon-California Trail used from about 1832 to 1845 by the French-Canadian trappers employed by the Hudson's Bay Company. Every year Michel La Framboise, among others, met fur hunters camped with their families here. In 1844 Charles M. Weber and William Gulnac promoted the first white settlers' colony on Rancho del Campo de los Franceses, which included French Camp and the site of Stockton.”

As early as 1493, Spain laid claim to all the lands 100 leagues west of the Azores based on the Papal Bull “Inter Caetera” issued by Pope Alexander IV.  This bull gave Spain a monopoly to colonize the lands west of the 100 league line.  In the next year, Pope Alexander VI mediated the Treaty of Tordesillas between Spain and Portugal which moved the demarcation line between the two countries’  respective spheres of colonization to 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands, granting Brazil to Portugal and the rest of the “New World” to Spain.  With Balboa’s sighting of the Pacific Ocean in 1513,  Spain had a solid claim to the west coasts of North and South America.  It wasn’t until Cabrillo and Bartolome Ferrelo’s  voyages in 1542-43 that Spain made any attempt to see how far their claim actually went and what it might contain. Later voyages in the 1700’s by Juan Perez and Bruno de Hecta kept Spain’s claims viable. 

Spain was not alone in laying claim to the Pacific Coast.  England based it’s claims to parts of the Pacific Coast on the voyages of Sir Francis Drake and George Vancouver.  Russia claimed parts of the Pacific Coast too, based on the 1728 and 1741 voyages of Vitus Bering.  The United States also claimed parts of the area based on the 1792 voyage of Robert Grey and the overland expedition of Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery as well as John Jacob Astor’s establishment of Fort Astoria in 1811.  With all these competing claims, conflict was inevitable.  When the Spanish captured four British ships in 1789 in Nooka Sound near Vancouver Island, Great Britain threatened war, leading to what what was called the “Nootka Crisis”.  Spain quickly negotiated a settlement and relinquished its exclusive claims to the Pacific Coast.  By 1824, both Russia and Spain had given up their claims to the Pacific Northwest.

Why did these counties all want a piece of the Pacific Coast?  Well, for trade with the native tribes, for a harbor on the Pacific to facilitate trade with China and the rest of Asia, and most importantly, for the vast natural resources of the region one of the most valuable of which were the pelts of fur bearing animals.  Before the Gold Rush, the main impetus for coming to California was trade.  The Russian American Company established Fort Ross as both a trading and agricultural supply post for its outposts in Alaska.  John Jacob Astor established Fort Astoria and an outpost for his Pacific Fur Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company established Fort Vancouver on the north bank of the Columbia River.  American, British, and French-Canadian trappers and mountain men combed the Cascades, Sierra Nevada, Coast Ranges, Willamette, and Central Valleys for otter and beaver which were becoming scarce further east. Meanwhile, at sea, seals and sea otters were hunted from the Aleutian Islands to Baja California.  

With the absorption of the North West Company in 1821, the Hudson’s Bay Company had a monopoly on the fur trade in British North America.  Its agents roamed from the Rockies to the Pacific, from the Arctic Ocean to California’s San Joaquin Valley searching for beaver and otter and trading with the Native tribes.  Fort Umpqua was established in Southern Oregon in 1836 and, in 1841, the Hudson’s Bay Company opened a store in Yerba Buena.  French Camp arguably was the southernmost extent of the Company’s activities in California.  Beginning in about 1832, Michel La Framboise, a French-Canadian “voyageur” hired by the Hudson’s Bay Company made annual visits to French Camp as the leader of several fur hunting expeditions.  In fact La Framboise had been warned against taking beaver in California in 1834 and in 1835; General Mariano Vallejo warned him to leave and stay out of California altogether.  Eventually, the activities of the “Spanish Brigade” as the company of Hudson’s Bay men were called, became bothersome not only to Vallejo, but to John A. Sutter and Dr. John Marsh, both of whom complained to the government and demanded that something be done.  As a result, the governor placed a duty on furs taken in California and by 1842, the HBC trappers withdrew.

The fur trade was one of the major impetuses for the westward expansion of the United States and the early exploration as settlement of the Pacific Coast.  However, it was not to last.  By 1846, the Hudson’s Bay Company withdrew from California and the Oregon Treaty was signed ending the dispute between Great Britain and the United States over their competing claims.  In the treaty, the HBC was allowed to continue operating Fort Vancouver, on the Columbia, but the Company abandoned the fort in 1860.  By the late 1800’s many of the fur bearing animals had been hunted to near extinction.  Due to the decline of fur bearing mammals, the United States, Great Britain, Russia, and Japan signed the North Pacific Fur Seal Convention of 1911,  which was the first international treaty concerned with wildlife conservation.  This led to the Fur Seal Act of 1966 which extended protection to sea otters and the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, which prohibits the taking of any marine mammal in United States waters and by any US citizen on the high seas, with a very few permitted exemptions. Today, the Hudson’s Bay Company continues as a retail company in Canada and in 1943, the HBC renamed its fur trading division as the “Northern Stores Division”, and in 1987 the “Northern Stores Division” was sold and became a new “North West Company” and operates stores in northwest Canada and Alaska.  The “California Fur Rush” only lasted a few short years, but it is remembered in a few places, like French Camp, and it’s legacy are some of the first wildlife protection laws in history.

GETTING THERE: From 414 Mason Street:  Get on I-80 East.  Take exit 8B onto I-580 East. After 45 miles stay left onto I-205 toward Tracy and Stockton.  Merge onto I-5 N.  Take exit 467A onto Eldorado Street.  Turn right onto East Mathews Road, continue onto Ash Street.  Turn left onto French Camp Road and then right onto Elm Street.  The marker will be on your right.  It is about a two hour drive from San Francisco.